


falling out of control

by tonyang (kurusui)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Healer AU, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 19:09:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9840077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurusui/pseuds/tonyang
Summary: Mingyu chases after ideals and someone he doesn’t even know, and Minghao hopelessly ignores his better judgment just to keep up. (Healer AU)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Minor spoilers for certain KBS Healer plot points (2014-2015 kdrama, my favorite alongside Signal, pls watch it) but this is a very simplified/altered version of the drama, but with just enough stolen directly for me to call it the basis. haha. ♡ Aged up slightly, idk, mid-late 20s? ([title src!!!!!!!!](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/gabrielleaplin/whatdidyoudo.html) great song and so fitting)

“You’re about to go on a suicide mission,” Junhui warns, from the comfort of his basement hideout. The words are lost to Minghao’s ears though, as the rush of the incoming subway takes over his senses. 

“What’s that, I couldn’t hear,” the boy replies, adjusting his earpiece and chasing after the train when it passes him.

“SUICIDE MISSION,” Junhui hollers, knowing Minghao will ignore him, and yet turn completely fine. Jun mostly says this to scare him a little. He’s not a trained hand-to-hand combat fighter for nothing. That... doesn’t stop Junhui from being worried, though.

True to his belief, Minghao, master of stunts, finds his way to the tail end of the subway, latches on, and breaks in. “Do you have tracking on the target?” he asks, keeping his voice low.

“You don’t say anything when I’m concerned, all you do is ask me to give you information I already told you because you don’t prepare-”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Minghao says loudly, both to Junhui and the crowd he is forcing himself through, “but could you rattle off your grievances another time because I was supposed to meet the guy by now.” His eyes scan the mass of people in the subway car, looking for, oh he doesn’t know, a guy who looks like he’s anxious to get out of the country as soon as possible. Which really shouldn’t be identifiable to the average person if he’s doing it right, because there are doubtlessly dozens of SS agents trying to find and kill him. 

They’ll fail, as long as Minghao gets there first.

“What do you think I am,” Junhui complains, “a incompetent SS agent?” Minghao blinks and a radar map appears on the corner of his glasses, and he finds the terrified man in the next carriage over. The subway screeches to a stop.

“Well, damn it.”

Men in black suits and ugly haircuts swamp the station’s stairs and Minghao knows this is their cue to leave. “Out we go,” he says dryly, and pulls the small escapee over his own shoulders. Junhui always tells him it’s a bad idea to put that much strain on his body, fighting’s bad enough when he’s so thin and all he eats is bad takeout from the restaurant next door, but hey, his life’s on the line.

Junhui narrows his eyes at the sight of Minghao’s changing vitals on his computer screen. “Suicide mission.”

“I haven’t died yet and I don’t intend to,” Minghao snaps as he carries the man to the door and slips out just as the mob spots them. “Goodbye suckers!” he yells, not being able to resist the feeling of pride that comes from outwitting a bunch of underpaid lackeys. Junhui rolls his eyes and then opens them wide, the map in front of him sending red alerts.

“Healer-ya, their boss is coming in from a car,” he reports, and Minghao blanches.

“I’m not a courier for nothing,” he says firmly, delivering the man to a taxi in front of the station. “Here are your documents for leaving, the passport, the fake ID, it should all be there-”

“On your tail,” Junhui says, and Minghao answers, “I’m faster.”

Minghao sits in the car tapping his fingers against the leather seat as the poor man beside him shakes in fear, and he just shakes his head at how people get themselves into these situations. “What did you do again?” he asks. “Reported a crime? Rejected a deal?”

“I backed out of a deal,” the man says nervously, and Minghao adjusts his black cap and his black high-tech sunglasses, and, while he’s at it, his black jacket. He lets out a long sigh.

“I don’t judge morals, but I do judge bad decisions,” he says. The runaway shifts in his seat. “I don’t care though, what I think of you doesn’t matter as long as I get paid.”

The airport approaches and as they scramble to get out of the taxi Minghao tosses some money at the driver, knowing his payment for this job’s going to be many multiples of that sacrifice, and they dash into the building as a car of mobsters pulls up to the entrance.

“Run for your damn life,” Minghao hisses to his client. He turns to face the men, stopping them in their tracks, kicking and punching and evading until he’s knocked half of them out. Someone’s called the police, he can hear the whispers, and he looks to the security line with gratification when he can’t see the man anymore, and he gets kicked in the stomach and it hurts, so bad.

“Hao,” he hears urgently in his ear. Minghao ignores it, as well as a semblance of other sounds coming from observers, and immobilizes the rest before taking on the leader, a cocky guy with a captivating sneer.

“Don’t you dare,” Junhui says at a glance of the footage from the glasses’ camera, seeing the boss’s hardened fists, and the authorities in bright blue uniforms running in from the outside of the glass doors. “Get the hell out right now.”

“Just let me get a punch in,” Minghao asks as he does, in fact, get that punch in. He grimaces when the enemy hits him again in that sore spot from before, but he twists and runs off to a different exit. He looks back just to make sure the boss is captured, or at least chases him out the door instead of breaking his way into the terminal where his client is probably cowering in fear.

The boss’s made his way to his car and sped off, Minghao observes from the edge of the road. The lesser of two evils. 

_ Click. _

Minghao turns his head.

In between the glass doors stands a guy, ash brown hair, camera in hand, looking at him with fascination, but only for a few seconds because Minghao jumps off the side of the airport ramp to the lower level road, heart racing a thousand miles an hour.

—

“He has a picture of me,” Minghao says over the phone, face pained. He munches on seaweed potato chips to eat his stress out.

Minghao’s apartment is a quiet place, a few stories up so he can see the night skyline lit up with city life. He lives alone, obviously. The bags of junk food in his pantry and the trash filled with styrofoam utensils, therefore, are of no one’s concern but his. And Junhui’s.

“Yeah, and so do a dozen others, thanks to that very PUBLIC stunt you pulled in the middle of an AIRPORT,” Junhui points out. He’s mad. Of course he is.

“What else was I supposed to do,” Minghao mutters, before backtracking - “Please don’t answer that.”

Junhui takes in a deep breath before exhaling. “Yeah, I don’t want to lecture you for another hour knowing you’re not going to listen to it.”

“Thank you,” Minghao says, lying on his couch and staring at the ceiling. “Now. Back to the topic of concern-”

“First of all, it’s your fault you were caught on camera, and second of all, one picture isn’t going to kill you.” 

“Then why have I never seen a picture of you in my life,” Minghao says hotly.

The line is silent. 

“Anyways,” Junhui continues, “why are you concerned with that guy, and also, can you eat something healthy for once, I’m sure some healthy places deliver to you. I’ve ordered salad over the phone before.”

“You know, it’s really not fair that there are surveillance cameras all over my apartment through which you can see everything that I do, and I’ve literally never seen you before,” Minghao says, shifting the position of his phone.

“Stop changing the subject.”

“You stop changing the subject!”

“It was your choice to hang around the outside of the airport,” Junhui reminds him. “If you had gotten out of there quicker you could have avoided him.”

Minghao makes strained noises and Junhui sighs.

“On second thought, he was probably in the crowd when you were fighting-”

“Can we please stop discussing that one guy, I’m not obsessed with him.”

“I never said you were,” Junhui answers slowly. 

“You’re the only person I care about, Junnie.”

“Okay sure.”

“Who the hell brings a DSLR to an airport,” Minghao says. “He wasn’t traveling, he had nothing else on him.”

“Lots of people. Maybe he was taking pictures of his friends who were going on vacation or something?” Junhui suggests graciously. 

“He followed me outside and took a picture of me then-”

“Minghao, sleep it off.” Junhui hangs up the phone.

—

He wakes up the next day and his back has the worst bruise colored on his skin. Furthermore, he feels terribly ill.

“I told you this would happen,” Junhui says, voice emanating from a speaker in Minghao’s room. “Yesterday was a mistake. Also, what you eat does not help your health one bit.”

“Shut up,” Minghao answers, groaning and rolling over in his bed.

“I’ll order some hot soup or something for you, hot milk, I dunno what normal people eat when they’re sick-”

“I eat takeout from next door,” Minghao says.

“No.”

Minghao rolls off the mattress, stands up, winces at the pain in his side, and pulls off his clothes to change.

“Whoa, give a warning next time,” Jun says. 

“I’m going to unplug the camera in here, like why in the world is there a need for camera in my bedroom-”

“I already called in an order for chicken and tea, if you’re not back in a half hour to answer the door I’m cutting your wifi. Don’t stay out too long, you need to sleep.”

“Stop mothering me Junnie,” Minghao complains, voice soft. “I’ll be back.”

—

The streets are moderately empty. It’s a breezy winter morning, no sun, and Minghao doesn’t live in a busy district. 

When he’s out as a normal guy, or whatever you call an off duty mercenary, he opts for white outfits and a little color. Jun’s told him his face is cute when it’s not obscured with a mask and glasses, when he has his hair down and the black fringe almost reaches his eyes because he never gets it cut. “Okay,” he remembers saying back, displeased. “And that helps me because...”

“You’re cute,” Jun had said.

Anyway, he walks past the takeout place today and heads into the convenience store. He doesn’t have his earpiece, but Junhui still has tracking and his vitals and probably some other info Minghao doesn’t know about.

Minghao is browsing the frozen food section for some feel-good dessert when the clerk’s fretting alerts him to some commotion outside. He walks up to the window and sees two guys fighting across the street, one of them waving a newspaper and the other a camera.

One of them has ash brown hair. Minghao watches, entranced, then decides he doesn’t care and turns back to the ice cream. 

He can’t help himself. He looks out the window again. The pair is gone.

Frustrated at himself, Minghao pulls out a pint of vanilla ice cream from the fridge and why not a container of chocolate too, when the bell rings and someone steps into the store.

Minghao keeps his eyes concentrated on the shelf like maybe a third pint would be good, he could go for a sorbet or something when the man comes up next to him and he nearly drops his ice cream on the floor.

“Excuse me,” the guy says, all trenchcoat and ridiculous height, and reaches in front of Minghao to grab a container for himself.

Minghao gets a good look at his face. It’s very handsome, he realizes. Again, there’s not any time to form further impression because he moves in front of Minghao so briefly and then-

“Excuse me?” the guy repeats. Minghao suddenly understands that he’s been staring. Also, he hasn’t been recognized. (A good thing, he knows.)

“I saw you across the street,” Minghao says in a desperate effort to form a coherent sentence. The camera hangs around the man’s neck, the same one from yesterday.

“Oh, I had a fight with my boss,” he replies with a laugh and an eyesmile, and Minghao has to keep himself from making any weird expressions. He just had an argument and manages to grin like that, um- “He just fired an intern you see, and I really need help on my assignments, hey, do you need a job?”

The first thought Minghao has is  _ how do you offer a job to a guy you just met in a convenience store _ and the second thought he has is  _ Junnie did just tell me to stop taking on so many clients _ and the third thought he has is  _ Junnie would kill me if I considered this offer for a half second _ and before he has time to have a fourth thought the man says, “My name is Mingyu,” and Minghao really forgets everything.

“Sure,” he says before any reason can stop him.

—

The money is nothing compared to courier work but it has a fraction of the danger level, Minghao tells himself, so why not.

(“I didn’t ask for your name,” Mingyu says curiously when they’re crossing the street, or, he might have mused to himself,  _ you didn’t tell me _ .

“Myungho,” he says. “Seo Myungho.”

“Are you a foreigner?” 

“I’m not,” Minghao answers, in a very obvious accent. It’s a disastrously failed attempt at keeping one more thing about him a secret.

“Right,” Mingyu says easily, disbelievingly, and so lightly, like it didn’t matter.

“...I’m Chinese,” he admits. 

“I see,” Mingyu says, grinning. 

In his head, Junhui’s imaginary voice is yelling at him. He has absolutely no self control.)

“So, we’re a news company,” Seungcheol finally explains. Seungcheol, the editor, who asked Mingyu on what reasoning Minghao was getting hired, to which the answer was “someone with good observational skills,” which Minghao had to admit was true, but it was still, incredibly laughable don’t you think, that he’s really getting hired for this-

“News...” Minghao feels a little pit in his stomach. He never reads the news. Junhui, on the other hand, probably found some articles last night and spared him a scolding because he was sick.

“Yeah,” Mingyu says eagerly, “I totally have a lot of stories to write because half the office decided to go on vacation, and our boss did nothing to stop them-” he gives Seungcheol a pointed look- “but I need help and without Chan to take notes for me-”

“You mean to get you coffee,” Seungcheol says bluntly, “and like I said I didn’t fire him, I just asked him to take a break to focus on school.”

“Seungcheol hyung, please...”

“If Myungho isn’t even fluent in Korean how do you expect him to take notes for you?”

“I,” Mingyu starts. Minghao coughs and looks at him expectantly, never having understood what his job description was in the first place.

“I need a photographer,” a girl in the office says, dropping a tape recorder in her bag. “Mingyu, make sure he knows how to use a camera and let me borrow him.”

“That’s Mingyu sunbaenim to you, Yebin, or at least Mingyu oppa.” She huffs. The short haired girl beside her smiles, and Minghao does too.

“Like I’m ever calling you either of those.”

“I’m not letting you have him!” Mingyu grabs Minghao’s arm and holds it close to him. “I’m gonna be a good senior and protect him so you don’t traumatize him like you probably scarred Chan-”

“Enough,” Seungcheol says after what feels like an eternity of bickering. “Mingyu, you have 20 minutes to teach Myungho the camera and then you have to write up your Healer article.”

Minghao freezes.

—

“The camera is easy. Basically, you should just press this button here to take pictures and look through the viewfinder to make sure you’re capturing something useful and you’re set. I mean, for a photo journalist like me it’s a lot more complicated, but you don’t need to take anything that great for Kang Yebin,” Mingyu says smugly.

“So,” Minghao begins nervously. “What’s the Healer story?”

“Oh!” Mingyu’s eyes light up. “You’ve never heard of the legendary Healer?”

Minghao knows all too well, but he feigns ignorance with a small shake of the head.

“You’re a foreigner, of course,” he says, and Minghao smiles wryly, because he’s been here for enough years, it’s just a reminder of his self-alienation. “Healer’s a guy who takes on odd jobs for cash, but like, the really dangerous and sketchy kind. I hear a lot of those end up exposing corruption and other crimes, he’s like, a modern superhero! So I really wanna look into him and write something up so everyone can know about him. I really believe in those ideals, you know, truth and justice.”

Minghao stares blankly. He doesn’t believe in either of those and has never pretended to. Mingyu is chasing after a false identity.

“So, can you take some pictures and let me see if you’re good enough to work here?” Mingyu asks, paying no attention to Minghao’s internal crisis.

Minghao’s eyes move to the camera and his mind moves to the pictures that must have been on it. “I’m just going to-” he presses some buttons with struggle, and Mingyu almost pulls it out of his hands. 

“It’s just the top button, Myungho.”

_ Yeah, you see, _ Minghao would like to say,  _ I’m really just trying to find the- _

There it is. In the camera’s gallery, from yesterday. It’s a beautiful picture of himself in his black getup outside the airport, great lighting and all. Mingyu’s a real professional... Left probably means, oh, there’s pictures of him fighting. A good lot of pictures.

“Whatcha doing?” Mingyu asks, as Minghao frantically looks for the delete button.  _ It’s a shame to waste these nice photos but this is what Junhui would want me to do- _

“Sorry, I think I did something wrong,” Minghao says, satisfied and trying not to show it. Mingyu looks at the PHOTO DELETED. message and frowns, but immediately perks up.

“I have them all backed up already, don’t worry about it!” He slings his arm around Minghao’s shoulders and ruffles his hair with his other hand. “You’ll learn eventually. I’ll teach you everything. A little airheaded, I suppose, but you’re charming enough, everyone’s gonna love you.”

“Wonderful,” Minghao says faintly, trying to push this feeling of foreboding out of his head.

—

“You utter fool,” Junhui says.

“I know,” Minghao says.

“You complete—”

“I KNOW,” Minghao shouts. 

The food delivery sits in a plastic bag on Minghao’s coffee table, cold and a little dry from the hours it had been sitting in front of his door. The ice cream is in the freezer trying to return to its original state of being - Yebin’s assignment was on the long side.

“I literally have nothing to say to you, Minghao. You’re so difficult.” Junhui turns up the volume on his microphone to emphasize the last sentence.

Minghao lies on his bed, exhausted, finally remembering he’s sick again and ready to collapse. Junhui says he has nothing to say but he never actually means that.

“Go back tomorrow and quit. Or better yet, never go back. You didn’t give them your address, did you? Fool.”

“I gave them the fake info we used on our job last month,” Minghao says tiredly.

“You remembered that? Impressive.”

Neither of them says anything for a few seconds. 

“I got you a new client,” Junhui says, the alert of a new email making noise on Minghao’s phone. “The payment for the last one came in too, which means your guy is safe, but that was a close one, Minghao.”

“Take your commission and admire it so I can sleep in peace,” Minghao mumbles, face planted into a pillow. “And whatever happened to ‘not taking dangerous jobs?’” He puts his fingers up for the air quotes, knowing Junhui will see through the cameras, and probably tell him off for it.

“You just started working for someone who’s trying to reveal you to the public Minghao, if you don’t call that dangerous...”

“He’s not trying to  _ reveal  _ me,” Minghao says. “He just wants to, you know, write stuff up.”

“About you.”

“Yeah... about me.”

“Okay,” Jun concedes. “You try this job out and get caught and go to jail and I won’t be able to save you. But that’s fine.”

“Junhui.” Minghao hesitates. Junhui is coming at this from a rational, concerned angle, and meanwhile he’s off making impulsive decisions based on what? Intrigue? Does he even have consideration for his own future?

“Go do the research this client wants and send it to me through Hansol, then go quit your new job.”

“...Fine,” Minghao says. He checks his bank account, and there’s a new zero at the end of the balance. If he’s really going to save up for an island in the Pacific, he needs cash. Courier work pays. Small news company internships don’t.

—

Healer’s assignment for the next day is planting a bug in the conference room of a huge conglomerate’s headquarters. There’s a major meeting between shareholders and the company elite he has to beat. Evidently it was the request of a rival looking for their business strategies, but it doesn’t matter to Minghao.

Minghao has mapped out the building, figured out what security points he’ll need to bypass to get in, though when it comes to the actual entry, he likes to wing that stuff.

“The meeting’s in four hours,” Junhui says through the earpiece. “Only thing is, there’s a 50th anniversary celebration for the business on the bottom floor, so there are gonna be a lot of eyes on you if you mess this up.”

“Yeah yeah,” Minghao says, waving it off. “I’ll be fine. My cold is gone, which is already a great sign. Ice cream does wonders.”

_ I will be fine, _ he says confidently to himself as he swipes an ID card off a man in the bathroom and passes the fancy looking party and catches a glimpse into the ballroom. There’s golden decorations everywhere, everyone in dresses, and a ton of cameras. Minghao shudders and turns before he sees the other female employee from Pleiades News at the back of the crowd.

“Oh man,” Minghao whispers.

“What,” Junhui asks, not recognizing any danger.

Minghao knows how to be stealthy, there’s not going to be any problems here. “Absolutely nothing,” Minghao says, darting off toward the elevator, before a loud explosion shocks his eardrum and cries of hysteria from the party follow.

“What the fucking hell,” Jun hisses. “Minghao, get out.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he answers, slipping through the crowd.

“Don’t even look back, they’re not gonna have the meeting today after this,” Junhui says, and that suddenly reminds him the Pleiades girl is there, and he in a daze decides, despite Jun’s shouting in his ear, he’s gotta go just check, because...

He reaches the door and he sees the girl hanging on to someone and pleading, and he sees that person resisting, and he sees ash brown hair.

“We’re never gonna end up on top if we don’t take the hot stories when they’re sitting at our feet, Kyungwon,” Mingyu says with gritted teeth, snapping photos.

“There could be another bomb at our feet, Kim Mingyu!” she shouts, desperately looking at the unconscious bodies at the center of the detonation. “We didn’t come here to die!”

“I’ve been following the feud between these two companies for two years,” Mingyu says defiantly, “and there’s no way I’m letting this slip through my fingers. Yebin would agree with me. Even Minkyung would. Go home, Kyungwon.”

“Yebin and Minkyung are less reckless and brash than you,” Kyungwon insists, pulling harder at his wrist. “You have your pictures, now let’s go-”

Minghao shuts his eyes when a bright light blinds him, signalling another explosion.

He opens them and runs to the pair in a frenzy, checking for wounds and blood - it looks like they’re just knocked out, thank goodness - and pulls them to the side hallway. 

Mingyu and Kyungwon lie at his knees as he sits against the wall and breathes heavily, trying to regain his strength. Sweat pours down his exposed forehead. “Minghao, you’re okay?” Jun asks, relieved.

“I’m fine,” Minghao whispers, as Mingyu stirs. The latter rises from his weak sleep and looks at the disguised stranger in front of him in a stupor.

“Healer,” Mingyu exclaims. Minghao puts out a hand to cover his mouth. Behind the doors, they hear footsteps and hushed discussion of a failed plan and an undestroyed document. In front of Minghao, Mingyu has instinctively started the tape recorder and jots notes on scrap paper despite his weary state.

Another bomb goes off and the walls shake and ring vibrations across the room. 

“I have to find those men,” Mingyu says, trying to pull himself up and falling back to the ground. Minghao wants to fill Kyungwon’s role and remind him he’s almost died, but he doesn’t dare to speak. “Thanks,” he adds, realizing they’ve been saved. He tries to get up again-

Minghao punches him in the shoulder so he loses the strength to move.

“Hey!” Mingyu cries, wounded physically and mentally, “I can fight and save myself, I don’t need you to tell me what I can’t do.” Minghao snorts and gives Mingyu’s leg a weak kick for good measure, and prepares to run off. This’ll be safe enough, he’s done more than his own duty already.

Mingyu grabs the leg of his pants and Minghao just wants to shake it off, he really could if he needed to, but he doesn’t. 

“What do I call you? Healer?”

Minghao bites his lip. He doesn’t have the time.

In a second, he pulls out a business card - all that’s printed on it is ʜᴇᴀʟᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ8 - tosses it at the reporters on the floor, and in the next, he’s gone.

—

“So, I was all  _ hyaah!  _ and grabbed Kyungwon and got us out of the building,” Mingyu says excitedly, a crowd of chairs surrounding her hospital bed. His own arm is covered in bruises, but he manages to act like nothing’s wrong with him. Kyungwon rolls her eyes, knowing it’s an exaggerated tale of how they were helped out by the police, but she entertains his retelling of history.

“And by then Healer was gone?” Yebin asks, taking notes. It’s a group of reporters he’s talking to, after all.

“Yeah, yeah, but man, he was so cool, we might have died without him, I felt it when he carried us out of the ballroom,” Mingyu says, standing up and imitating the scenario. “You should have been there.”

“You should have NOT,” Kyungwon says, glaring, and Mingyu sheepishly retracts into his seat. “It was Mingyu’s fault we were still in there when the second bomb went off.”

Minghao sits in a chair farthest from Kyungwon’s face, not being able to look at her from the other side. It’s really weird, meeting the same people in two wildly different contexts. Like Jun said, he should have just quit - but tech specialist Seokmin had taken Minghao in his hands and dragged him to the hospital in a fit of worry, and there was no time to get another word in.

“We got an article out, though, and it has lots of hits,” Seungcheol says, scratching his head. “Mingyu, I never want to see you do that again, especially what with you involving someone else, but we did get something out of it.”

“Take that back right now before Mingyu gets any ideas,” Jeonghan scolds. “We got nothing out of it.”

“You should really try to stay out of trouble,” Minghao says quietly. He can’t speak authoritatively because no one knows he has the right to, having saved them, but maybe those words could mean something too, coming from Myungho.

“Hey, don’t worry!” Mingyu says with a smile. “I’ve been a reporter for years, I know what I’m doing! I’m pretty good at fighting. And plus, I’ve got Healer on my side.” Minghao frowns, but notices Mingyu hasn’t mentioned the business card.

“I don’t think you can rely on a superhero to save you all the time,” Minghao insists, trying not to make it seem like he knows too much, or cares too much. 

“He believes in goodness and helping people! I’m sure he’s trustworthy,” Mingyu says. Kyungwon sighs, but seems to agree out of gratefulness. Minghao stammers. This is a heavy level of expectation on him that he’s never experienced, never knowing what people thought of the elusive Healer. Not having to worry about ethics is what always allowed him to do his work properly.

“Okay,” he says at last, but no one hears, because they’re all getting ready to leave. Kyungwon waves goodbye and says thank you for visiting, and Yebin gives her a long hug and a promise to return later.

As they exit through the hospital lobby, Minghao slips the earpiece out of his pocket and turns it on, checking for updates from Junhui. “Did you quit?”

“No,” he murmurs. Junhui grumbles but doesn’t say anything else.

“See you tomorrow!” Mingyu says with all confidence, without even asking if Minghao was coming back.

“Ok!” Minghao says, walking away and pretending he doesn’t hear a voice in the back of his head telling him this is a bad decision, and especially ignoring the real screaming in his ear sourced from a very irate Wen Junhui.

“You’re a mess,” Jun says.

“I know,” Minghao says.

—

“I at least have to make sure Mingyu’s okay,” Minghao says in his own defense. “Kyungwon’s still in the hospital, but he had some bad bruises too.”

“Hao, he’s gonna be fine, if the employees care about each other as much as you say they do. He has people to take care of him.”

“Mingyu’s too daring for his own good,” Minghao argues. “He’s hopeless.”

“So you’re just going to check on Mingyu? And then you’re going to quit and finally go home and get a proper night’s sleep?” Junhui asks skeptically, and Minghao shrugs and when that’s not convincing he makes a promise.

Minghao walks in with half-baked resolve the next day and figures without exceptional circumstances, he could walk up to Seungcheol and explain quickly he wouldn’t be able to work anymore. And you know, ask for him to give Mingyu a good scolding, or something. And that would be the end.

Unfortunately, the first face he sees upon entering the Pleiades News building is Mingyu’s. He feels cursed, and relieved at the same time.

Minghao visibly stiffens at the sight of him, but Mingyu takes no offense and jokes, “Can’t escape me forever, Myungho! You’re taking pictures for me while I do interviews today!”

Minghao looks him in the eyes, and his genuine happiness is already fascinating. He can’t help but smile.

“That’s what I like to see,” Mingyu yells, and Minghao knows it’s time to give up.

—

The first week of work turns into the first month which turns to two, and Junhui is pissed but he lets it go because Minghao’s been good about his words and keeps the secret very well. Furthermore, Healer going on hiatus leaves nothing for Mingyu to investigate, and he pursues false leads with frustration, but earnest persistence.

“You’re really getting good at taking pictures Myungho, though you’re never gonna surpass me.” Mingyu clicks through the folder of Minghao’s work on his laptop, watching his improvement over time with pride.

“You only say that because you’re afraid I will,” Minghao retorts, and Mingyu gives him a light shove.

“I’m your senior! No disrespect,” he says, laughing.

Mingyu conducts interviews on the daily, makes politicians hardpressed to answer honest questions, brings out the best in the neighborhood families’ stories. For all his shortcomings and bad decisions, Seungcheol heaps praise on him, and he proves himself an integral part of the Pleiades News staff. His ideals are contagious too, and Minghao can’t deny he’s been influenced.

Minghao watches over him with increasing confidence, and at some point he realizes he’s lulled himself into a false sense of security. Mingyu barely escapes danger sometimes, and it’s all Minghao can do to drag him out before he goes in too deep. Minghao is a little too complacent though.

“At least you’re sleeping more,” Jun observes as Minghao crawls into his bed after a long day.

“Ew, please stop watching me 24/7.” Minghao pulls the covers over his head, hiding in a mess of untidied blankets.

“I have a life besides taking care of you, you know?”

“Yeah, like what?”

“It’s a secret,” Jun says flippantly. “I just blew a kiss at the microphone, if you didn’t hear that.”

“Greasy as well as annoying, I see.” 

Junhui sighs. “Mingyu has ruined you, Minghao,” he says in a more serious tone. 

“Unrelated. What does that even mean,” Minghao says, lifting the blankets off his face so Jun can see his engineered vacant expression. 

“You know what that means. Stay away from him cause you’re way too close and he’s gonna catch on. He’s a smart guy.”

Minghao thinks about the picture from the airport printed out and thumbtacked to Mingyu’s corkboard, he thinks about the Healer theories Mingyu rambles about during lunch break, he thinks about being Seo Myungho, Mingyu’s assistant and friend.

It’s a little too late to stay away, Minghao knows, the way Junhui predicted this would end, but he doesn’t need to give Jun the satisfaction of being right about anything else. 

“That’s the thrill,” Minghao ends up saying cheekily, half hearted. 

(It’s not a thrill - Minghao is scared.) 

—

“I’m sneaking into the SS base,” Mingyu declares on a bleak Wednesday morning, where not everyone in the office is awake enough to register his words at full alert.

“You’re not,” Minghao responds sharply. This does set off a million alarm bells in his head, ones that have been dormant for weeks, and he digs his nails into his palm.

“Yeah, I’m not,” Mingyu says.  _ "We _ are!”

“No, we’re not,” Minghao says in a panic, and Mingyu registers it as a reflection of his own physical weakness and assures him he won’t have to do any fighting.

“If we do it right, we sneak in, get some juicy info and hightail it outta there,” he says, winking. Jeonghan frowns at him, to Minghao’s delight, and starts shouting for Seungcheol to come knock some sense into their star reporter.

“Seungcheol hyung’s not here today,” Mingyu says slyly. “And so, we’re off! Let’s go Myungho!”

“No,” Minghao groans as he looks longingly around for anyone that could help him. Yebin gives him a sympathetic look but heads out to go on her own adventure, and Seokmin has dozed off in the corner. Jeonghan, who has no ability to control Mingyu, pats him on the back and crosses his fingers for them.

“This is really happening,” Minghao laments on the way to the SS base. He’s been forced to drive because Mingyu is busy organizing files and changing the battery in his camera. (Forced, of course, being open to interpretation-)

“Yep,” Mingyu says cheerfully. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t seen Healer in a while,” he admits sadly, and Minghao’s throat goes dry.

“Don’t tell me that’s why you’re-”

“No, well, not really,” Mingyu says shakily. “The SS have been killing people left and right at the orders of big corrupt organizations, so obviously I want to cover that. But like, I’m not that afraid. He might be there, trying to take them down too.”

“You’ve met Healer like, twice,” Minghao says dismally, staring at the city road. Two times he knows very well. He won’t say Mingyu’s delusional, but it’s astonishing how he’s led himself to believe in someone so much less than what Mingyu thinks he is.

“I like him,” Mingyu says plainly. “I admire him.”

Minghao swallows and asks Junhui in advance for forgiveness. 

“You have me,” Minghao says, in a very intentionally striking way. 

Mingyu gives him a long look. “It’s not the same, Myungho.”

_ Is it really not _ almost escapes Minghao’s mouth, but he stays silent. Then  _ he’s not who you think he is. _ Then,  _ UM, IT IS THE SAME. _

Healer is moralless - he attracts danger and enemies - hardly anything he does is legal. Healer can’t trust anyone except his hacker accomplice who has long standing ties to his now gone family. Healer’s not a good person.

Mingyu starts chattering about how they’ll have to be quiet and sneaky and Minghao laughs on the inside because these are things he understands better than Mingyu ever will.

“I’m testing my luck,” Mingyu says.

“Don’t,” Minghao says, and instantly regrets it because he really does care far too much. 

Then,  _ are you really jealous of yourself, Xu Minghao? _

He’s still driving.

—

To have expected this night to end in anything other than disaster would be senseless.

They sneak in, the property entrance poorly guarded and the path well hidden. Mingyu leads, nerves hitting Minghao all over the place despite his confidence in his own abilities, remembering years of work and memories of training.

This is already a bad sign. It’s like the whole life flashing back before your eyes the moment you’re dying thing, and Minghao feels dizzy with apprehension.

“Did I ever tell you I was an orphan?” Minghao says in despair and a lack of control over his own voice. It occurs to him he might actually be scared to die.

“No,” Mingyu whispers, “but is this really the right time to talk about this?”

“Well, we could die today,” Minghao says apathetically, and Mingyu gives him a flick to the forehead. 

“We’re not dying.”

They move into the main building from the back entrance and Mingyu looks for a room of interest to plant a bug in while Minghao checks his pocket for his glasses and fastens his earpiece, because while he doesn’t intend to have Healer meet Mingyu a third time, bad things happen.

“I’m going into the boss’s room,” Mingyu calls across the hallway, and Minghao resists the urge to yell and slap him for being so careless; he disappears into the door, and cars screech their way into the driveway.

“Get back here, Mingyu!!! Get out!” he says furiously, and when he gets no response or trace of the boy Minghao says fuck it and puts on the glasses. He realizes he doesn’t have anything else to disguise himself, not the hair gel or the mask or the black outfit, but it’s too late, just like everything else.

Minghao got himself into this situation the moment he decided to take on this job and rejected every way out, and now Mingyu’s stuck, too-

He runs frantically through the house and Jun shouts commands and finally, they see Mingyu gagged and tied up and his eyes are pleading and it hurts so badly.

“Hao, calm down, panic isn’t going to help right now,” Junhui says.

Minghao has some restraint and he doesn’t run to Mingyu. 

“I have to tidy up this mess so keep your head down,” he yells, and Mingyu complies, and ten minutes later they’re escaping on Hansol’s motorbike, carrying dirt and bruises and new understandings.

—

“The hospital again, I see,” Seungcheol says with a grimace. He places a bouquet of flowers next to Mingyu’s bed. The light from the window streams in across his face.

“Sorry, boss,” Mingyu says with a tired smile. 

Aside from the two of them it’s empty, an early morning visit Seungcheol is managing on his return from a business trip, a few minutes he’s sparing for his star reporter.

“I can’t believe this,” he responds, laughing reluctantly. “I told you not to do this again - but you’re okay. That’s what matters.”

“Thanks to Myungho,” Mingyu says.

The room is quiet.

“I have to get going,” Seungcheol says, “but the others will come by later, and I’ll give you the scolding you deserve when you get better. ”

“Thank you,” Mingyu replies, looking at his left arm in a cast and feeling the bandages on his face.

Seungcheol turns to the doorway and sees Minghao standing there. He smiles wistfully, and when Minghao makes room for him to pass, all he says is another quiet thanks.

Mingyu sees Minghao for the first time since he was dropped into the bed half conscious last night and his face is unreadable. 

“So,” Minghao says after he approaches the hospital bed. The nervousness he expects in his own voice is absent. It must be a product of honesty.

“I think you have an apology to make to me,” Mingyu says brazenly. It’s all he can do, really, because he’s too drained to do anything physical. 

“Me, apologize to you,” Minghao echoes, amused. He takes a seat. “Okay, I’ll indulge you. For what.”

“For pretending you weren’t my idol,” Mingyu answers, like a moody child.

“I’m not your idol though,” Minghao says pointedly. “Healer was never who you thought he was. I was just a hired courier.”

“For not letting me know what I had,” he says. “You.”

“Stop,” Minghao says, coloring. “First of all - don’t say stuff like that. And second of all, I did. Yesterday. I told you you had me.”

“I didn’t understand. I need help with these things and you knew.”

“Oh, Mingyu.” Minghao plays with the folds of the sheets, not making eye contact. Mingyu looks at him earnestly.

“I wondered,” he says eventually. “If he was you. If you were him.”

“Crazy speculation, I’m sure,” Minghao supposes. 

“You’re ridiculous if you don’t think I can’t recognize you after months of seeing you every day. That and the photo on my desk to compare you to.”

“Then what was yesterday?” Minghao asks, still reeling from the rejection.

“I was testing my luck,” he says softly. “And my luck failed me. You’re surprisingly good at keeping secrets.”

Miscommunication. Secrecy. His own downfall. Minghao grips the sheets tighter.

“I almost got you killed,” Mingyu says apologetically. “You didn’t deserve this.”

“You almost got yourself killed,” Minghao retaliates, “and I would have been fine, but then I would have had to deal with a lifetime of knowing you died because I didn’t stop you from doing something I knew was a bad idea.”

“I’m sorry, Myungho,” Mingyu says. 

Those words are like magic, because Minghao can’t bring himself to be mad anymore. “Don’t call me Myungho,” he says instead.

“The8?”

“My name is Xu Minghao,” he explains, but in surprise - “You remember that alias?”

“Oh, Minghao,” Mingyu says, pronouncing it roughly but brightly. It’s nice to hear. “I have it right here with me,” he says, waving the business card in the air.

“Why did you keep the card,” Minghao says quietly. “It means nothing.” 

“I thought it was special,” Mingyu explains. “Like, I figured only people who met him- you in person would have one. Isn’t that true?”

“I guess so, when you think about it like that,” Minghao says with a laugh, endeared.

Minghao thinks about Mingyu’s natural friendliness and warmth and how he’s only here because those captured his heart and made him stay even when he thought he needed to leave. He thinks of the great days they only had because he defied his better judgment (and Junhui). He also thinks of the scary, life threatening days, but he decides it’ll be fine as long as they do their best to limit them. After all, Healer will always be around in a pinch.

“We have stories to write, so you have to get better soon!” Minghao exclaims, getting up and stretching. “I’m going to the office.”

“What about The8?”

“Still hung up on him?” Minghao laughs. “He’ll still be around. Probably less active. More careful. Hopefully a better person.”

“I’m sure he will be,” Mingyu says, and it hits him he really has changed over the winter.

Minghao touches his earpiece. “Oh, Junhui hyung wants me to tell you you gave him an absurd amount of stress and he wants 3 months of his life back.”

“Who’s Junhui,” Mingyu asks in momentary confusion.

Minghao grins, and over the line Junhui lets out an incredulous, exhausted sigh. “I have plenty of time to explain.”

**Author's Note:**

> i was supposed to write an in universe fic next but rip... the random ideas you get when you’re in class. or supposed to be studying for a math midterm.
> 
> this idea actually sprung from the “physical contact” scene in healer that i remembered after considering some other potential gyuhao scenarios but it never even made it into the fic... lmao... healer is a 20 ep kdrama and for good reason, so there was no way i was gonna write even half of the good parts into a three day project. (in case you’re curious, it would have been jun telling minghao to avoid physical contact and minghao poking mingyu in the face, deliberately saying physical contact outloud dsfllslsdlk) also... i did very much consider having mg be healer bc that could have been a lot of fun but in the end it was decided by the fact that mh has 3 names to work with lmao
> 
> but this is a. thing that i needed to get out. LIKE WHAT IS UP WITH ALL THE GYUHAO THIS WEEK I DIED also i have a total of 2 people i can talk to abt gyuhao one is a person who likes them but only talks about minghao fighting mingyu randomly and refuses to engage in any conversation with me about them otherwise, and the other is a non-svt stan who’s the best person ever anyway so if you want to talk to me about them... comment...


End file.
